What proportion of trucks today could go electric? That’s the question Emily Porter at RMI has asked for California and New York. The answer is 65% of medium-duty trucks and 49% of heavy-duty trucks. Those are very encouragingly high numbers. RMI’s definition of “electrifiable” is if they travel fewer than 300 miles between trips to their home bases. The study gathered real data on how freight trucks are driven today. Clearly, a large number of … [Read more...]
Biomethane for decarbonising transport: the Swedish example
Biomethane has a critical role to play in the decarbonisation of transport, particularly long-distance trucks and ships, where electrification is more difficult and expensive. Angela Sainz Arnau at the European Biogas Association explains that biomethane represents one of the lowest greenhouse gas intensive pathways when the whole emissions lifecycle is measured. However, when nations implement bans on internal combustion engines to cut the use … [Read more...]
Clean transport in Europe: key trends to watch out for
T&E’s quarterly trends series gives a snapshot of the key developments that will define the future of clean transport in Europe. And what Europe does – given it wants to lead this field – should influence what happens worldwide. T&E’s Thomas Earl brings attention to four issues. First, proven progress in this major sector makes it a contender for a significant role in Europe’s new industrial strategy. It ranges from battery and … [Read more...]
New cooling system for inverters brings electric Heavy-Duty Trucks closer
39% of greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector comes from heavy-duty trucks. Commercial batteries struggle to deliver enough power to make electrification feasible for heavy-duty applications. Rebecca Martineau at NREL explains how a working prototype, developed with the heavy machinery manufacturer John Deere, is now getting a 378% increase in power density. The key to the innovations rests on a state-of-the-art thermal management … [Read more...]
Don’t commit to Hydrogen pipelines yet? Trucks can do the same job more flexibly
Could trucks be a better way to transport (and even store) hydrogen than pipelines? Yes, says a research team led by the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), mainly because of the flexibility they offer particularly in the early stages of the hydrogen roll-out. Kathryn O'Neill at MIT explains the findings. A pipeline can take 10 years to build, during which time the locations where the supply and demand must be met are likely to have moved, given the … [Read more...]
Aviation should be given target dates for zero-emissions. It’s working for cars and trucks
The French government’s decision to ban some short-haul flights if there is a rail alternative under two and a half hours is only symbolic, says Andrew Murphy at T&E. It would reduce French aviation emissions by only 0.8%. Expanded to rail journeys under five hours and it’s still only 4.5%. Long-haul flying is the much bigger problem, but the resulting emissions are outside of France’s current climate target. Instead of just talking about … [Read more...]
Clean Trucks are coming: a review of battery, hydrogen, synthetic fuels and more
New EU fuel efficiency rules are forcing truck makers into a race to get their low emission vehicles onto the roads. From 2025, newly registered trucks must have 15% lower emissions, and from 2030 it’s 30%. Battery-electric drivetrains are most likely to dominate, assisted in their evolution by the assured progress and charging infrastructure of EVs. Hydrogen fuel cells and synthetic fuels are also in the game, though hindered by the inevitable … [Read more...]
Biofuels vs Hydrogen: which can fuel aviation, shipping, trucks?
The positive signals coming from EV sales and charge points contrast with the lack of progress in finding alternative fuels for aviation, shipping and trucks. Cornelius Claeys runs through the prospects for biofuels and hydrogen to power long-haul transport. Biofuels are already used as a substitute for fossil fuels, and EV uptake will usefully free them for fuelling heavy transport. But as decarbonisation ambitions rise the pressure on scarce … [Read more...]
Which sectors need Hydrogen, which don’t: Transport, Heating, Electricity, Storage, Industry?
Which sectors are most suited to hydrogen, and which are not? For the answer, six academics from the UK and the Netherlands - Tom Baxter, Ernst Worrell, Hu Li, Petra de Jongh, Stephen Carr, and Valeska Ting – use their areas of expertise to neatly summarise hydrogen’s pros and cons in Road and Rail, Aviation, Heating, Electricity and Energy Storage, and Heavy Industry. Their general message seems clear: hydrogen is still very expensive, so it can … [Read more...]
IEA: Without accelerating clean energy innovations we cannot hit net zero by 2050
The impressive rise of renewables and energy efficiency, alone, will not be sufficient to meet the world’s 2050 emissions goal, says the IEA in its flagship Clean Energy Innovation report. New technologies, taken all the way through to widespread adoption by the market, must become an essential part of the net zero pathway. The stark warning is that existing policies to decarbonise shipping, trucks, aviation and heavy industry are not nearly … [Read more...]
An EU Hydrogen strategy: from industry feedstock to energy vector
The bravest recovery strategies will invest robustly in new yet-to-take-off clean energy technologies. If you are going to have to spend hundreds of billions to revive your economy isn’t it better to replace the old with the new rather than prop up what you’ll have to abandon soon anyway? In anticipation of that happening, new technologies are lining up. Here, CĂ©dric Philibert at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate summarises their detailed … [Read more...]
Don’t wait for international agreements. Sector-wide action can accelerate the Transition
December’s COP25 in Madrid showed how difficult it is proving to get agreement between nations on how to ramp up the deep decarbonisation the world needs. David Victor at the University of California, San Diego, writing for Rocky Mountain Institute, accepts that international consensus is never going to be easy. Instead, he recommends that individual sectors take control of their destiny. His co-authored report “Accelerating The Low Carbon … [Read more...]
